The Situation Is Excellent: The Week That Was At Beijing Cream

People’s Daily wrote a withering rebuke of the New York Times and dredged up some old cases of plagiarism, all while plagiarizing. A woman drunk tweeted about her drunkenness before dying in a single-car crash, while Ningbo PX protests were the big news of the week.

The Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China has specific exemptions declaring copyright to be null and void in matters of newsworthiness.

That makes it hard to argue that People’s Daily has committed ‘wrongful appropriation’ or violated any actual law. For its purposes, this was all cherry picked from some nebulous public domain.

Within the context of journalism, the whole reason people harp on plagiarism is that it is somehow more honest to attribute the source of these words (arguable) and that being so forthcoming is an essential part of a media outlet’s integrity and credibility.